In Search of a Future Worth Living

January 26, 2015

I recently did a TEDx Rainier talk on The Fun of Climate Change. I hope you will watch it and forward a link to this page on to your friends. In a nutshell this is what I said:

There are three ways to respond personally to the news about climate change: Denial, Depression or Doing something about it. One of these is far more fun than the others.

We need to have fun with global warming for two reasons:

Gloom and doom are not selling very well; in fact it appears that they drive people into denial and depression.

We need a lot of creativity to solve the challenges of global warming and people are a lot more creative when they are having fun.

That said, we appear to be headed rapidly toward a tipping point after which, even if we stop emitting CO2, the temperature is likely to run away to a stable hot house state which is about 13.5° hotter than now. We are talking alligators in the Arctic. So how bad it that?

Mother Nature will be fine (forgive the metaphor)

Mother Nature has been in the hothouse before. In fact she has spent more time there in the last 600 million years than in any other state. In her moment of greatest creativity in the last 600 million years, the Cambrian Explosion, the carbon dioxide level was 3000 parts per million and the average temperature was around 13 degrees hotter than now. In a brief moment of only about 20 million years, nearly every major category of multicellular life came into being. In a later hothouse era, flowering plants evolved. Later in another hothouse era most of the major categories of mammals evolved.

If we let the temperature rise out of control we may lose over half the species on Earth, but that loss will be followed by a period of rapid species creation, which might even be a leap forward in the complexity, diversity and amazingness of life.

As you can see my recovery from climate depression has forced me to take a very long view, but I ask you to understand. I became deeply depressed by the threat I perceived after reading too many James Lovelock books in a row, a threat not only to the human race, but also the vitality of life on Earth. It is good to know that, even if it does not relate to human time scales, that in the long run nature will be OK. Nature has been in the hothouse many times before.

But what about Humans?

Will the human species survive runaway climate change? To be sure it seems likely that as we adapt to the new conditions we are likely to greatly reduce the human population. However it also seems clear that humanity will survive. Again I take comfort in that. But why do I believe it?

The species that survive ecological catastrophe are generalist species like raccoons, foxes and cockroaches. These species can adapt to widely different climates and conditions. Specialists not so much. Monarch Butterflies, for example, depend on arriving at their temperate feeding grounds just as the milkweed ripens. If anything interrupts that cycle they are toast.

Generalist species like cockroaches, raccoons and foxes can be found in almost every climate and every ecosystem. They adapt to new conditions.

So what about people. Short of bacteria we may be the ultimate generalists. We flourish on ice flows and the tropics, deserts and rainforests. People will still be part of the mix.

With a little luck we will be smarter as we rebuild civilization. Every religion will have some version of “Don’t mess with mother nature,” built into its core principles. We may even learn to work together for the good of all. Generally after each catastrophe humans create a renaissance. I wish I would be here to see it.

One basic principle emerged again in this talk, The Happo Dammo Ratio. You can check that out in an earlier blog post by that name. It is, I believe, the basic metric we need to optimize to address climate change and environmental destruction.

The happiness created by an activity

Happo Dammo Ratio = -------------------------------------------------

The damage done by that activity

In the TEDx talk I give an example of raising the Happo Dammo Ratio 1000 fold. If we can do that in some cases we can achieve an average an improvement of five fold, which is what we need to stop climate change. Get good at raising that number and there will be enough for everyone.

The Happo Dammo Ratio also shows what is going wrong. When I was a young lad I believed that I needed a 400 horsepower car to get laid. That shows how little I knew about women, but it also illustrates the basic mistake we are making over and over in our society. We are trying to improve our relationships with stuff.

After moderate amounts of food water clothing and shelter, what makes people happy are the quality of our relationships, the meaning we find in their lives and our institutions, the generosity we display and so forth. These qualities are not about things. By seeking happiness through things we are not only destroying the systems on which our civilization depends, we are also directing ourselves away from any effective path to happiness.

If you read any random article on intrapreneurship, chances are the author points to Gifford Pinchot III as the one coining the term in 1985 as well as being the creator of the “the Intrapreneur’s 10 Commandments“ that have circulated widely since their creation.

Some even call him the father of intrapreneurship.

Why is intrapreneurship a must-do for companies?

In a rapidly changing world, innovation is the source of both profit and survival. The faster the world is evolving, the faster old ways of doing things, old products and and old service designs are made obsolete by innovative competitors. So innovation is essential.

The surprising fact is this: You don’t get innovation in large organizations without intrapreneurs. Dr. William Souder did a 10-year life cycle study of 289 innovations in 53 companies. He was hoping to discover a process for driving innovation in large companies. He came back a bit discouraged.

The only thing he could find in common between the successes was the presence of a passion intrapreneur. As he put it, “The intrapreneur is an essential ingredient in every innovation.”

Why do companies struggle with innovation in the first place?

Companies are organized to do what they are currently doing. Anything new cuts across organizational boundaries and probably is not directly helpful to the metrics by which people in all those boundaries.

Are companies really ready for intrapreneurship in its true form?

Most companies have a culture and a structure that makes innovation difficult. But that doesn’t rule out intrapreneuring. What works is a relationship between an intrapreneur and a sponsor. The sponsor helps the intrapreneur get through the challenges and gates of whatever system has been put in place to support (block actually) innovation. In general successful intrapreneurs gather a team of sponsors who collectively support them despite “the slings and arrows of an outraged bureaucracy.”

Another relationship is also important: the relationship between the intrapreneur and the team.

If all of these relationships are strong, there is a good chance of success. If not, it won’t happen.

What is the most surprising development in the field of intrapreneurship since you coined the term in 1985?

To me, the most surprising development has been the success of free intraprise. Free intraprise supports intrapreneuring of internal services. Most people in a large organization provide services to other people in the organization. What if the way those services were provided was fully intrapreneurial?

There is an internal bank that manages the details of the free intraprise system.

The bank and its steering committee license “intraprises” to operate after they present a plausible business plan. It maintains accounting for the teams.

The bank provides intraprises with a loan to get started.

The intraprises get no allocated funds; they generate the revenue to support their salaries and costs by selling services inside the organization.

As long as an intraprise does not break any fundamental rules they may pursue any internal customer in competition with other parts of the organization such as staff units, direct hiring by their customer, outside suppliers, etc.

An intraprise may set its prices and choose what customers to pursue

An intraprise deposits funds received in the bank. They carry over from year to year until they used. They may be used for any legitimate business purpose without requiring permission.

Insolvent intraprises will be dissolved (HR will try to find members other jobs).

An intraprise may chose its members from willing applicants

No outside manager can force the team to accept a member or prevent one from joining

No outside manger can commandeer an intraprise team member

The leadership will be determined by the team and leaders will not be removed by outside authority except by the Steering Committee with cause

What have you been up to lately?

I have just created a series of 3 online courses in intrapreneuring. The first was a 3-hour course introducing the basic principles of intrapreneuring. It was a mandated course for 1100 IT professionals in a German firm. Despite the negative impression created by being forced to take it, it got a 95% approval rating at the end. This rarely happens with a mandated course.

The second course continued lessons on how to succeed as an intrapreneur, however the main content was on preparing a business plan for an intrapreneurial team. 12 teams began the course. 6 were funded by an executive review panel on graduation. Others found some time and resources to continue. The returns for the company so far are ten times the total investment.

May 16, 2014

Aspirationals are 39% of all people, and, while not deep greens, they care about sustainability. They are a curious mixture of “materialism, sustainability and cultural influence.” They seek to consume less, but love to shop. According to the authors, they are the most critical audience if your want sustainability to go to scale.

Baranowski and Bemporad offer five ways to reach aspirationals:

“Manifesto: Give them something to believe in.” Make your brand stand for something.

“Badge: Give them something to belong to.” Let your brand be their badge of identity.

“Megaphone: Amplify their voices.” Give them a way to co-create with you.

“Currency: Give them social status. Help them to influence others and gain status for doing so, for example by "Points. Badges. Leaderboards." "Keep them “in the know.""

“Rally: Give them a platform for action.” Provide ways for them to participate in changing the world.

March 30, 2014

Science claims to have an evidence based way of knowing, but it claims to know things with equal certainty whether they are based on evidence or on scientifically orthodox beliefs that are not supported by evidence. Asserting that beliefs for which there is no evidence have been proven by science has undermined the credibility of science with large segments of the population. This lack of credibility for the parts of science that are based on evidence is causing our society not to deal with climate change. It may lead to the end of civilization and the death of billions. It doesn’t have to happen if science wakes up.

Science accuses others of having their heads in the sand, but in this case it may be scientists who are not taking responsibility for the shoddiness of their thinking. Let me give a relevant example.

When I encounter someone who says the Earth was created 6,000 years ago and that the fossils were put there by God to test our faith, I roll my eyes. Perhaps I am being narrow minded. Oops, according to a Gallup Poll I am writing off the 40% of the American public who believe humans were created in their current form roughly 10,000 years ago. Oh wel, I don’t think we can get Science to treat this belief seriously.

Now suppose I encounter someone who accepts the fossil record, accepts that life on Earth began about 3 ½ billion years ago, that the Cambrian explosion was around 542 million years ago, etc. Suppose they accept our descent from monkeys and the history of evolution as having happened. But suppose they don’t buy the scientifically orthodox explanation of that it happened by random variation and natural selection alone. They have a different theory, namely that in addition to natural selection, God had a hand in pushing things in the direction that God wanted them to go. 38 percent of Americans hold some variation of this belief.

I can hear the scientific response to such a view. "Balderdash! The evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory of natural selection and rejects any involvement by God." But does it?

Looked at objectively, both the dominant theory of natural selection, sometimes called the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and this theory, the theory of natural selection as guided by pushes from God, are equally consistent with all the evidence we have. When Science asserts that one of these theories is correct and the other just plain wrong, that assertion is based on belief, not evidence.

As far as we know, the difference between the two theories is not scientifically testable. If so, according to the scientific method they are equally valid. I invite comments that propose a experiment to show which theory is correct, pure random natural selection vs. some sort of guidance of evolution by God through an unknown mechanism.

Why does this matter? Because most people in the US believe in God and believe that God is active in the world. According to a 2011 Gallup poll found that over 90% of US citizens believe in God. A Baylor University survey on types of belief in God, found that about 24% of the public are Deists, that is they believe that God created the universe and established the physical laws, has not fiddled with it since. 90-24=66. This suggests that about 66% of the public believe that God is actively involved in influencing what happens on Earth today and that God has been active since the beginning of time. Should we be surprised that, with a little help from corporate disinformation campaigns, so many people reject evolution, science and climate change?

All that is needed to fix this situation enough to get us moving on saving civilization is a bit of humility in Science. Stand up for what you know from the evidence as scientific fact. Explain the rest as your personal belief and make room for those who have other beliefs, especially when they are consistent with the evidence.

Just as God’s existence cannot be proven by science, neither can God’s non-existence. This matter is resolved by a choice in what to believe. We all find ways to give meaning to our lives. As Victor Frankl showed us, the search for meaning is at the core of what it is to be human. To lose meaning is to fall into despair. Let us be tolerant of differing worldviews, particularly when they are consistent with the available evidence. Let's let the people who believe in God back into a stronger relationship with science without asking them to give up their beliefs. Everyone assembles their worldview with one or more leaps of faith. Even atheistic scientists.

If, as Rupert Sheldrake says in Science Set Free, (published as in England), science stood by what there is strong evidence for, and treated theoretical beliefs as different from fact, science would be freed to explore phenomenon outside the current scientific paradigm and more people would trust science.

April 14, 2013

“Recognizing that corporate antibodies
are likely to show up at some point in your innovation process and having
strategies in place to deal with them should help you derail some of the people
who want to impede change and maintain the status quo.”

This is so true,
though I would warn against seeing critics as enemies. It works out better to
see critics in a more positive light.

A number of
Lindegaard's more specific suggestions also resonate with my experience:

Make people backers rather than blockers: Lindegaard gets off to a good start with stakeholder analysis and communicating
proactively. He gives good suggestions for managing the ego of potential
critics.

To his
suggestions I would add this: Hear the
criticisms of your ideas as attempts to help. Find ones that might have a grain of truth and
check them out. Learn something useful. Then come back with gratitude. You might say:

“Last week when you said (criticism) I
was not pleased, but I checked it out and you were right. I’ve fixed
the problem in the following way… Thank you so much – if it had not been for
you I would have gone on making a very expensive mistake.”

It is hard for your critic not to feel better about you and your idea once you express gratitude and define them as contributors to the idea. The challenge with this strategy is that it only works if you are sincere.
Be sure you really have managed to forgive and to become genuinely grateful.

Stay below the radar: Good advice here.
Publicity triggers the corporate immune system. Rub the rough edges off your
idea by showing it to friends before you let potential blockers form negative
opinions about it.

Have frameworks and processes in place. Here
I worry about what people will do with Lindegaard’s advice. “Putting processes for innovation in place” is usually implemented with a “Pipeline Process,” in which deas move through a defined pipeline with committees stationed at
various checkpoints along the way. At each stop the committee must approve the project to move to the next
phase. These checkpoints become ways to kill new ideas. The ideas that generally pass through all those committees are mediocre
ones. All the truly innovative ones as well as the lame ones are screened out. That is not good enough.

What works
better is a system that encourages managers to become sponsors of specific
innovations. This sponsor system relies not so much on a process as on relationships of trust. Sponsors shepherd the intrapreneur around the immune system, provide resources and protect the
intrapreneurs from the slings and arrows of an outraged bureaucracy.

Provide high autonomy: Providing high
autonomy to individual managers as well as to innovation councils is a great way
to create a network of empowered sponsors. If many managers have the power to protect and fund intrapreneurs, there will be many innovations.

It is
encouraging to see writers like Stefan Lindegaard who understand how innovation
actually happens inside large organizations.

March 29, 2013

New ideas don’t generally fit neatly within existing organizational boundaries. They require innovators to cross the boundaries of the organization in search of help, resources and permission.

Many good ideas are lost when forward progress is blocked by the need to use resources from other parts of the organization. In most cases they are lost because the intrapreneurs did not know how to gain the trust of those whose help they need.

What the intrapreneurial warrior needs to succeed in getting resources:

1. A vision that inspires: a dream others find is worth fighting for.

2. The integrity to be trusted amidst ambiguity and chaos.

3. The persistence to keep going when the going gets tough.

4. An inner compass that guides progress toward the vision.

5. The courage to follow one’s inner compass, even when others are telling one to turn back.

6. The emotional intelligence to understand how others will react to various approaches.

7. The wisdom to know how to use diplomacy, reframing and tact to avoid creating trouble for yourself or others.

Definition – Reframing: creating a new way of looking at a situation to move a person from negative states like anger, worthlessness, or defensiveness toward ways of seeing the situation that give energy, life, productivity and affection.

9. The generosity of spirit to make and keep friends and allies across organizational lines.

10. The business judgement and frugality to make good use of resources once granted.

As we leave the industrial era, work is increasingly about innovation and doing something different for customers. Machines and computers are eliminating dull and mindlessly repetitive jobs. The jobs of the future involve innovation and caring, both of which require self-motivation and freedom to improvise.This creates a suggestion to bosses to grant such freedom, and equally a message to employees to take the initiative without always waiting for approval.

Once one leaves the macadam roads of defined procedure and habitual action, and takes to the byways where innovation happens, the skills and attitudes that lead to success change. Traditional bureaucratic expertise is not enough to achieve the rate of innovation needed today. What is needed are the skills of the intrapreneurial warrior. To be valuable to your employer in a time of rapid change, so long as you are not exposing the organization to a major risk, you often need to see what needs to be done and just do it. You will discover that many of the constraints we imagine are not real.

Nonetheless, there are times when you must wait for resources or permission. Suppose your project has come to a screeching halt because the people in some other department don’t seem to understand how important it is. You know the return on investment for the company would be great. You need their help or their permission, but they are too busy to help. What can you do?

Plead with your boss?Well, you’ve probably tried asking your boss already. If it worked, fine, but before you ask your boss to spend precious political capital on your behalf, ask yourself if you have made the job as easy as possible.When your boss requests project resources from someone in another area, it’s going to be easier if you have pre-sold the idea to the people who will do the work. Have you already converted some of those people to your cause? Getting your boss to lobby others on your behalf may be part of the solution, but it is not the place to start.

Explain the glorious implications of your idea?It’s tempting, when visualizing the positive impact of your project, to tell the world all about it, but the effect of your excitement may be to scare people. If, in its fully realized form, your project will change everything – their department, their job, and the comfort of familiar ways of doing things – you cannot blame them for being cautious. If you make your project seem too world changing, they will respond with delaying tactics and requests for more information. This does not move your project forward.

Ask resource owners for advice?The danger of premature glorification is neatly matched by the danger of premature requests for resources. Ask too soon for too much and there is a good chance that you will get some version of “No!” Once someone has denied you resources, rationalization sets in: if they refused to provide resources, then your idea must be bad, otherwise they made a bad decision not to support it. The more they say “no” to it, the worse your idea becomes in their minds.

This vicious cycle of rejection can easily be turned around. Simply ask for some form of help that will be granted. The request for help most likely to be granted is a request for advice. When someone gives you advice, they are contributing to your project. If they contribute to your project one of two things must be true:(1) Your project is worthwhile, so helping it is a good decision and they are a good manager. (2)Your project is no good, in which case helping it is a bad use of time, and therefore they are a poor manager.

The attraction of seeing oneself as good manager will win out almost every time. Keep asking for things they will agree to. Be careful not to ask for too much too soon. The more someone contributes, the more the project becomes their own. So start with advice and build your requests gradually until you can ask for more costly resources. The intrapreneurial warrior gets people involved before asking them for anything costly.

Express gratitude?Gratitude cements the value of whatever help you have been given, and can even dissolve overt hostility to a project. When someone in a position of power criticizes the project of an intrapreneurial warrior, the intrapreneur takes careful (mental?) notes. After some time to cool off and a bit of checking, the warrior finds truth in some aspect of the criticism. As a result, in some way small or large, the plan is changed.The intrapreneur then goes back to the critic and thanks him or her for pointing out a problem that might have sunk the project: “Without your help, we might have…”

Your critic may have tried to define himself or herself as your enemy, but you have reframed the criticism as a form of support. To balance things out, they rationalize that there must be good in your project.

If it is delivered with total sincerity, few can resist gratitude. However, it may take “emotional weightlifting” to actually feel gratitude as opposed to defensiveness and anger, Nonetheless, the gratitude strategy will only work if genuine. When you feel that you have been attacked it requires greatness of spirit to genuinely forgive and appreciate. Don’t try it until you have done your emotional homework.

Broadcast your idea?It seems smart to “run your idea up the flagpole and see who salutes.” There must be someone out there who can appreciate it. This makes sense in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice. The problem is this: every innovation involves a bit of creative destruction; the new way replaces the old.

As Machiavelli pointed out, those who would benefit from the innovation don’t fully imagine those benefits and remain on the sidelines, while those whose privileged positions or comfortable routines would be disturbed by the innovation recognize it at once and come forward with spears sharpened. The lesson is this: premature promotion of your idea triggers the immune system. The grander you make your idea sound and the more widely you distribute it, the more people it will frighten.

Build a team and a network of supporters?Gone is the era of the lonely innovator. The intrapreneurial warrior knows that when you are not in charge of everything you need, your success hinges on the quality of your relationships with the other players (and the referees).

The warrior is alert to the feelings of others and pre-sells the idea quietly to those in a position to help or hurt the idea. He or she builds an informal team of co-contributors even before a formal team is assigned. As progress is made, he or she distributes credit widely (the more credit you give away, the more people that support your project).

The intrapreneurial warrior keeps everyone in the coalition well-informed and keeps relationships alive, even when there is no immediate need for help. Building a network of friends, sponsors and co-contributors is “Innovation 101.”

Seek out another project?Every innovation passes through dark and discouraging days. Intrapreneurial warriors don’t give up easily. They find creative ways around obstacles.There are fake intrapreneurs who only want to head large projects with an impressive staff roster. They jump from project to project depending on what is in favor. If the project hits a political snag, they blame others and move on. This may be a good career strategy in some companies, but it will not lead to effective innovation.

Build a coalition of sponsors?Just as the intrapreneur and the intrapreneurial team are essential for innovation, so too is a coalition of sponsors. Sponsors help find resources, provide political air cover, coach the team and in general help move the idea through the decision system of the organization. The intrapreneurs focus on tasks like design, development, sales, team coherence and the like.

Getting help and resources for your project is more about relationships and trust than it is about the quality of your ideas. Listen. Find out what others care about. Be respectful of their needs.

The intrapreneurial warrior treasures a reputation for integrity, for without trust innovation is impossible. The intrapreneurial warrior is somewhat modest about the idea and its potential, lest others be scared by it. The intrapreneurial warrior asks for advice before resources, because advice is the form of help that people are most willing to give. The intrapreneur builds a strong team of folks committed to making it happen.

February 24, 2012

I am at SocEnt (Social Enterprise) Weekend in Seattle. We are designing a venture called Flipped Publishing, which will be a for profit subsidiary of BGI. Flipped Publishing is taking content from BGI and other sources and building distance learning modules in various aspects of sustainable business for use in other schools and corporate education. We will also sell non-accredited sustainable business education directly.

We need answers to a number of questions this weekend. We need your help. Here is the first:

Who would be our competitors? (What are the best existing online schools of sustainable business?) What customers do you think would be most interested in sustainable business education online? Please, please answer in the comment field?

February 16, 2011

Ecopreneuring is a way of using people’s desire to serve the planet and its people to inspire profitable innovation. It is also a way for people who care about these values to use business to serve the environment and social equity in bigger ways than they could do by other means. It is a win-win way to address the issues of sustainability.

Sustainability often comes across as a series of constraints, which does not lead to enthusiasm from traditional business people. Ecopreneuring is about seizing the opportunity in the next industry to drive a wave of economic expansion The industry that will help us recover from the current economic blues is the creation of a green economy that meets human needs and supports greater happiness without destroying the ecosystems or communities on which our lives and our economy depends. It includes everything from green tech to support existing lifestyles to supporting less resource intensive ways of generating human happiness. Ecopreneuring is a business trend that more traditional business people, environmentalists and social justice advocates can all support enthusiastically.

Check out this ECOPRENEURING WEBINAR, which is full of examples of ecopreneurial success and the principles underlying those successes.

Here are the 12 principles of Ecopreneuring that can help you to take advantage of this trend toward business that is both profitable and connected to our deeper values as human beings.

1. There is money in sustainability2. Measure resource use & impact3. Study the whole system: make & break connections4. Train & support ecopreneurs & their sponsors5. Eliminate waste: waste = food6. Solve future constraints where they exist now7. Find a powerful leverage point8. Invest in people, not just ideas9. Audit the organization climate for ecopreneuring10. Assess happiness/damage ratios11. Bring free enterprise inside your company12. Pursue “the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run”

December 01, 2010

Not long ago I went in for a test (a coronary angiogram). After the test found three serious looking doctors standing over me saying we would like to do a coronary bypass first thing tomorrow morning. I was still sedated so I said, “You told me not to make any important decisions for two days after the test procedure. Isn’t this a important decision.” They didn’t laugh, so I guessed my condition was pretty serious. I had the bypass the next morning.

Shortly after I came home from surgery, I found my self waking up at around 4am every morning and having trouble going back to sleep. I took to writing down whatever was on my mind and then going back to bed. I found what follows on my bedside table when I woke up.

I am a member of the Gaian Church of God. I am a Christian, a Moslem, a Buddhist, a Hindu, an Animist, a Druid and a Jew. I pray for the followers of all faiths, named or unnamed.

I stand in awe of the mysteries of existence, the vastness of the universe and the complexity of nature. I work to live in comfort with the mystery and a sense that something is going on that is infinitely bigger, more significant and more causative than me. Yet I am a small part of the mystery and am growing to include more of it without needing to understand it all. I seek to do my part.

I am a Gaian in the sense that I live on this planet and care deeply about the vitality of the life system of which I am part. I am a loyal member of life. I commit myself to defending life on Earth from whatever threatens to reduce, degrade or eliminate it.

I am a defender of love against the forces of hate, civilization against barbarity and fighting, humanity against threats to the vitality and happiness of our species.

I believe that humans have a positive role to play in supporting the health and longevity of life on Earth. I work to help us rise to our role as stewards.

I believe that both the vitality of life on Earth and the civility that makes civilization possible are threatened by climate change. I believe our current way of life is a major cause of this threat to all we hold dear. I work to change that way of life in my own life, my work, my community and, should I be so lucky, in our society and our planet. I am deeply grateful to others who do the same.

At the Gaian Church of God we celebrate each other's good works. We make a better party out of supporting Gaia, civilization, and the inhabitants of our planet.

We are all facilitators, reducing conflict and raising the level of the dialog wherever we go. We seek to reduce the fear that comes from believing that we need more to be happy. We meditate and cleave to living in the now, having fun and serving what really matters. We stand for truth, love, health, survival and compassion.

We live with our flaws honestly and yet with an optimism that says I/we can and will do better as we grow in wisdom and awaken to our spiritual essence. We take responsibility for our own growth and evolution to higher levels of consciousness – for moving away from hate, blame and selfishness toward love, responsibility and seeing the world from others' points of view.

We are happy because we are doing what we can together with others we love and trust. We take care of ourselves, our families, our communities and our planet. We seek ways to make sure there is enough for everyone.Together we have accomplished this: We need less and have more of what we really need. To a surprising extent we are living in love right now. It feels good. Feel free to drop by and sample the vibe.

The Pinchot Perspective

The Pinchot Perspective has been rather consistent for several generations. The rational greatest good for the greatest number in the long run cohabits strangely with a less rational but equally powerful reverence for nature, equality and adventure.

I long for a resilient, ecologically restorative and more egalitarian civilization. A resilient civilization is one that has great capacity to adapt to shocks, shortages, attacks and subsystem failures.

Gifford Pinchot

Sustainable business school founder, entrepreneur, father, author-speaker-consultant on intrapreneuring, sustainable innovation and organizational intelligence. I have founded and sold three businesses, one each in manufacturing, software and consulting.

My current passions: transforming business practice toward environmental and social responsibility, adaptation to climate change and sharing the Earth’s resources equitably.

Bainbridge Graduate Institute

I am the President and a founder of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, a leader in the movement to bring sustainability and economic justice into the business school curriculum and thereby into business practice. The Net Impact Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs has awarded BGI more first place rankings than any other school. Business Week has named BGI one of the 60 top “D Schools”.

Sustainability & Social Responsibility

Articles

Innovation & Intrapreneuring

I am the author of Intrapreneuring, a bestseller published in 15 languages. I am credited as coining the term “Intrapreneur” which is now included in numerous dictionaries. I am also the co-author of a number of other books on Innovation & Intrapreneuring, and numerous articles.

Books:

Intrapreneuring:Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur(Harper & Row, 1985)

Articles:

Resources:

Pinchot & Company

I am the founder and CEO of Pinchot & Company, which helps companies to innovate faster and more profitably and to become more sustainable. We do innovation audits, intrapreneurial and ecopreneuring training. We help organizations create profitable solutions to climate change, social justice, resource supply reliability and other sustainability challenges. We help companies develop the organizational intelligence needed to deal effectively with the multidimensional challenges of multiple bottom lines. Pinchot & Company’s client list includes over half of the Fortune 100.